GeForce RTX 2080 Founders review

We review the GeForce RTX 2080 founders (reference) edition. The little sister of the Ti model still packs some serious punch as it takes on the 1080 Ti anywhere and everywhere. Of course, the RTX 2080 will also have tensor and raytracing cores. Join us in a review of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080.

Posted on: 09/19/2018 04:59 PM
For me, I was kinda wondering how much performance is left on the table using a Intel Core i7-5960X at 4.2. I'd say 15-20%. Also Hilbert, I'm sure you checked this, but make sure your OC on your X99 wasn't killed by the MS microcode update.

Andy Watson
Member

Posts: 31

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:03 PM
The wait is over. 2 days late but gave Hilbert a chance to test the AIB stuff and make sure all ok.

Looking forward to reading this. Just got back with beers from the supermarket.

Andy

Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone

Posts: 34655

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:10 PM

For me, I was kinda wondering how much performance is left on the table using a Intel Core i7-5960X at 4.2. I'd say 15-20%. Also Hilbert, I'm sure you checked this, but make sure your OC on your X99 wasn't killed by the MS microcode update.

Standard procedure bro .. settings are checked and verified of course. BTW you can see the fixed frequency in the videos

Fox2232
Senior Member

Posts: 8504

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:20 PM
@Hilbert Hagedoorn : There are some anomalies in FPS between 2080 and 1080Ti. In some cases 2080 shows quite large advantage over 1080Ti @1080p. But loses it completely at 1440p and4K.In some cases it keeps same percentage advantage across all resolutions.And in some cases performs exactly same.

That's quite unusual because 1st case would hint HW changes which allow it to get higher maximum fps in lighter workloads.2nd case would hint that there is not that HW advantage and it is just bit stronger.and 3rd case would hint other type of bottleneck than GPU, but that's not the case since fps goes down proportionally with resolution.

One of weirder anomalies is Battlefront II vs. Battlefield 1. - That's almost same engine, but in Battlefront II 2080 has serious advantage at 1080p and completely loses it at 1440p/4K. - in BF1 2080 keeps above 1080Ti by 20% @1080p; 16% @1440p; 12% @ 4K.

Something does not feel right there. Maybe bug in driver, maybe something else.

HybOj
Member

Posts: 23

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:22 PM
DLSS is great, but really, these cards are 4k cards. So do you really need antialiasing there? Ofc in 1080p you need it, but if you play at 1080p, you dont buy RTX2080ti because it performs so close to 1080ti it just doesnt make sense. Other thing is, that DLSS was tested ONLY in those DEMOs. Meaning, its a benchmark where EVERY run is the same, right? Ok, so... how do we know, how this DLSS, which is basically AI, behaves in games, where every run is different? Because as it is NOW, this whole DLSS can be just working in these DEMOS! As nvidia run the processes on their supercomputers to come up with the best AI results - and as little artefacts as possible in these "always the same" scenarios. Real deal in games is absolutely unknown now. We dont even know if it will work without artefacts. 2080ti FE can easily reach 79degrees on OPEN bench. Wow, so that is the best cooler ever? Impressive. I dont share this sentiment that these cards are any good, all things considered, to me, its not recommended.

XenthorX
Senior Member

Posts: 2291

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:26 PM

Standard procedure bro .. settings are checked and verified of course. BTW you can see the fixed frequency in the videos

Guys i'm on haswell-e as well with my 5820k, might elaborating on MS microcode update and fixed frequency? Trying to get the best out of it right now.

Of course your going to buy a 2080Ti for 1080p, as thats the ray tracing res. :p

You are laughing, but that raytracing demo had reflections which would look exactly same at 720p. Maybe next generation.

tsunami231
Senior Member

Posts: 9084

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:31 PM
what happen to ATAA? I thought that was going with the next gen cards is is ATAA something for all at some point I like TAA but I hate its blurring effect in moving objects that ATAA is suppose to fix

pricing is stupid for these cards though, I think I rather spend 169$ few times and bunch 1 tb 860evo ssd or hell two 2 tb ones then pay those prices

fr33k
Senior Member

Posts: 1940

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:32 PM
@Hilbert Hagedoorn : There are some anomalies in FPS between 2080 and 1080Ti. In some cases 2080 shows quite large advantage over 1080Ti @1080p. But loses it completely at 1440p and4K.In some cases it keeps same percentage advantage across all resolutions.And in some cases performs exactly same.

That's quite unusual because 1st case would hint HW changes which allow it to get higher maximum fps in lighter workloads.2nd case would hint that there is not that HW advantage and it is just bit stronger.and 3rd case would hint other type of bottleneck than GPU, but that's not the case since fps goes down proportionally with resolution.

One of weirder anomalies is Battlefront II vs. Battlefield 1. - That's almost same engine, but in Battlefront II 2080 has serious advantage at 1080p and completely loses it at 1440p/4K. - in BF1 2080 keeps above 1080Ti by 20% @1080p; 16% @1440p; 12% @ 4K.

Something does not feel right there. Maybe bug in driver, maybe something else.this was my take as well, i'm loving the bf1 performance increase (the game i will most play bfv should reflect that) but everywhere else its all over the place. It has to be a driver issue.

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:39 PM
these must be some of the worst price/performance cards i've seen in the last 5-10 years. No consumer card (high end or so) should cost more than $999. I can justify (well, kinda) Tesla cards as they serve a whole different purpose. Nvidia is trying really hard to keep getting the same amount of money as they did during the mining craze, but i think they are throwing common sense thru the window. But it is quite obvious from reading comments here and on other sites they will get away with it as people will still buy them no matter the price, especially with AMD being non-existent in high-end segment. The only thing that needs to happen is for people to not buy their cards and unanimously say it is too expense (even with some lonesome sheep still buying the cards) and the prices would be forcefully dropped to where they SHOULD BE.Not having any Ray tracing and DLSS content on launch alone gives no sense to buy these cards as the price/performance increase is horrendous.As far as i'm concerned, i'll wait for next gen Vega cards and then i will decide: either i get a AMD card or buy the next gen console and leave my PC with the same hardware as a youtube/internet browsing/old(er) game machine.

Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone

Posts: 34655

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:40 PM

Any chance of some RTX2080 SLI and RTX2080Ti SLI benchmarks Hilbert?

Yes, on the to-do list. NV is still waiting on a batch of NVLINK connectors before they can ship one out, once they are in I will have a peek at that.

yasamoka
Don Vito Corleone

Posts: 4651

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:41 PM
So I downloaded all 4 videos between TAA and DLSS and color me impressed. I used Jdownloader, copy and pasted the video links, and selected the 4K VP9 videos, even though I watch it on 1080p screen, it would be all relative.

DLSS AA looks practically as good as my old 6950 unlocked at CFX 16xRGSSAA. Should be since Nvidia sampled at 64xAA -- er I mean "trained" their AI to inference... :p

Great job again Hilbert and agree DLSS is something to consider. Too bad no one can use it yet and there does appear to be more stuttering with DLSS ON.

But I think it would better for both current Nvidia and AMD GPU users to just buy a second used GPU and enable 16x or 32xAA modes (SLI or CFX AA). It does work in games that don't even support SLI or CFX yet you get way better AA with a second GPU and still cheaper than the 2080Ti.

I would take twice the ROPs, twice the power and heat, just to (mostly) guarantee great AA anyday.How in the world would a second GPU be enough to do 16x or 32x SSAA? Are you stuck in 2005?

chispy
Senior Member

Posts: 8588

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:44 PM
Excellent write up and top notch reviews as always @Hilbert Hagedoorn , i enjoy it very much every page you wrote with such in depth review , thank you for the hard work Boss.

Now my opinion on this new graphics card = 2080 absolutely not worth it because of the high price and performance is equal to 1080Ti. The huge elephant in the room is the 2080Ti , it is an absolutely beast in performance , heck yeahh , but that price make it almost impossible to justify as it gives ~20fps roughly more than a 1080Ti for double the price $1,200US dollars + tax + shipping + the new USA Tariffs coming up will make this card very Veryyy ... expensive .

Jeparisoe
Senior Member

Posts: 233

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:44 PM
Not as fast as I was hoping, but I will keep my 2080 pre-order.

wavetrex
Senior Member

Posts: 457

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:48 PM

You are laughing, but that raytracing demo had reflections which would look exactly same at 720p. Maybe next generation.

I spotted something very relevant in the Metro RTX on video. It only lasts 4 seconds, but it's enough to extract a still and do some measurements.http :// www .youtube.com/ watch?v=Ms7d-3Dprio&t=241s(url is edited because the forum is cutting out the "t" part - Copy paste link in your browser and remove spaces)

Notice how BIG and smooth those raytraced "points" are in the shadow, they are not the size of 1 pixel, more like 2x2It's extremely likely the game is rendering the raytraced part of the picture at a very low res (SD quality), and possibly even lower framerate than the rest of the image.

The reason for that is that the card is simply not fast enough for more.

~~~Proper realtime raytracing is simply not viable yet, and probably won't be in the next generation as well ( at 7nm ).However, that generation -might- be enough for at least >60 fps with RTX on. This gen is not.

user1
Senior Member

Posts: 1230

Posted on: 09/19/2018 05:58 PM
not bad, liking the dlss stuff, i'd imagjne it will be more useful on the lower end.

Valken
Senior Member

Posts: 1439

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:04 PM

How in the world would a second GPU be enough to do 16x or 32x SSAA? Are you stuck in 2005?

Nvidia users can also enable SLI with DSR to get better AA. Again, brute force but when it works, looks better than that blurry TAA.

No need for your implied insults also.

Embra
Senior Member

Posts: 782

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:05 PM
Thank you for all the hard work HH!!

Looks to be as expected.

Robbo9999
Senior Member

Posts: 1204

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:07 PM
Gonna put a quick summary of my thoughts on these cards (without reading anyone else's comments so as not to be biased).

Performance compared to Pascal in traditional games (not DLSS, and of course no ray tracing) is mostly in the 30's in terms of percentage increase with a few games showing 50% improvement in performance, with Vulkan games being smashed with 70% improvement. So that's not a massive increase in performance in comparison to Pascal, apart from the Vulkan stuff.

I noticed that the 2080ti seemed to be under-performing versus what I expected, considering it's got a huge increase in cores over the RTX 2080. I don't know why, maybe you get to a certain number of maximum cores, and once past that point you get diminishing returns in performance. I'm disappointed that the 2080ti is not living up to it's massive specs.

Overclocking. Seemed to get significant overclocks in terms of core & VRAM, but game performance differences was only about 5% increase - strange! That's the lowest performance increase I can remember seeing from overclocking, Pascal overclocking yielded greater increases. So overclocking seems like it's not 'working', not particularly worth it with this generation.

A quick note on DLSS vs TAA. In the EPIC infiltrator Demo I thought TAA looked crisper than DLSS at times, see from 2:36 onwards in the video where there is the distant city landscapes - the lights of the city windows look blurry with DLSS in contrast to the TAA version. We all know TAA adds blurriness, and I thought DLSS was supposed to kill the jaggies while having less blur, but that didn't seem to be the case. Significant frame rate increase using DLSS vs TAA though, so that was a positive.

Overall I'm not particularly impressed with the performance increases seen here over the Pascal cards. I'm thinking this generation is the one to miss, better to get the next gen after Turing. I'm looking forward to the ray tracing benchmarks that will be done though, once Windows 10 have released their shizzle as well as game developers.

I spotted something very relevant in the Metro RTX on video. It only lasts 4 seconds, but it's enough to extract a still and do some measurements.http :// www .youtube.com/ watch?v=Ms7d-3Dprio&t=241s(url is edited because the forum is cutting out the "t" part - Copy paste link in your browser and remove spaces)

Notice how BIG and smooth those raytraced "points" are in the shadow, they are not the size of 1 pixel, more like 2x2It's extremely likely the game is rendering the raytraced part of the picture at a very low res (SD quality), and possibly even lower framerate than the rest of the image.

The reason for that is that the card is simply not fast enough for more.

~~~Proper realtime raytracing is simply not viable yet, and probably won't be in the next generation as well ( at 7nm ).However, that generation -might- be enough for at least >60 fps with RTX on. This gen is not.Even with their attempt to move camera angle as slowly as possible, it is clearly showing stutter/low fps. Much more tweaking needed.With his kind of impact on performance, one has to wonder if regular screen-space "tricks" would not work in sufficiently better way than they do in case of viewport oversize rendering.

Regular screen-space effects have big disadvantages at screen edges, there reflections do not show objects not on screen. Screen space shadows/GI is not sourced by geometry outside rendered view.

But taking 1920x1080 viewport and rendering wider, taller FOV at 2304x1188 (10% to sides and 5% above and below) and then cutting 1920x1080 out of resulting image...This way missing information is actually outside of viewport shown on screen.

What about 360° bubble rendering which can be used as reference. 10% outside of viewport rendered at 1/2 resolution, another 10% at 1/4resolution, then 1/8, 1/16.Isn't that much better use of nVidia's new 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... shaders? With that, many of screen-space effects issues would be gone.

Toadstool
Member

Posts: 66

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:11 PM
The performance bump over the 10x0 cards is better than I was expecting, pricing is absurd though. Even giving the 2080ti the benefit of the doubt and saying it will prove (after better drivers and whatnot) a full 50% faster across the board than the 1080ti, a pricetag about double that of the 1080ti is madness.

Koniakki
Senior Member

Posts: 2733

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:15 PM
As usual, late to the party! :p

Thank you HH for another quality review even with all these limiting factors at play!

So, on the RTX stuff. Besides the seemingly rushed release, no RTX, DLSS until W10 Redstone 5(Windows 10 October 2018 Update) release possibly next month, all that secrecy about pure performance numbers, the unusual high prices, etc, the actual performance wasn't all that bad tbh(talking about 2080Ti mostly), but it all goes down the drain when you value in the current prices.

And I won't put my tinfoil and ask if there's a single chance that it was all planned beforehand by Nvidia, the rushed release and all, so they can shove in as many pre-orders as possible all while knowing DLSS and will NOT be available until late/end October at best, which possibly means many will run out of the return window/period? No I will not ask that. Anything goes at this point.

Imagine how this release and pre-orders would have went if Nvidia had shot themselves in the foot and they said in the RTX keynote event that the RTX 2080 offered 1080 Ti performance and the 2080 Ti was about 25-35% faster in average in 1440p and 4k over it. Smart move Nvidia. Shady but smart.

And on the good stuff. RT(ray tracing) is kinda revolutionary of course, even if it's not prime time ready, considering most AAA titles might or might not reach 60FPS@1080p with it ON from gathering from various resources online here and there so far.

I glad Nvidia didn't even hinted(afaik) or pulled a "Hey we gave you Titan V for $3k and now we give you a better/faster Titan V alternative for only $1.2k".

GDDR6 is nice, but 10GB for the 2080 and 12GB for the 2080 Ti would be a lot better.

Performance is nice(2080 Ti) but not €550(~80%) more worth of nice over what I paid for the 1080 Ti just over a year ago.

Given all the above, I must say that they seem like solid products from a performance standpoint only, with the 2080 Ti more so than the 2080.

Yeah I would love to have one but I don't want one(price wise).

And personally, this marks the first time in 8 years I will NOT be upgrading to the latest and greatest GPU and in all honesty it doesn't bother me in the least.

Happy gaming RTX's owners!

alanm
Senior Member

Posts: 8437

Posted on: 09/19/2018 06:33 PM

.. the unusual high prices, etc, the actual performance wasn't all that bad tbh(talking about 2080Ti mostly)...

You fell for it. Thats the point of the 2080Ti being released at same time as 2080, to get peoples attention off the failure of the 2080. Lets face it, this launch could not have occurred with the 2080 by itself, a new card that is roughly the same performance point of a 1 1/2 year older card at about same price point (1080ti).

A few weeks ago, many of us were wondering, how strange for Nvidia to move up a Ti cards release date to line up with a xx80 card, now we know.